The Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill has called actions in preparing the «Ukrainian autocephaly» order with a «global dimension» and «the struggle for the destruction of the only powerful Orthodox power in the world.»

«The stakes are very high, and the order for the destruction of the unity of our Church is an order that has a global dimension. It’s not just a struggle for jurisdiction — a struggle for the destruction of the only powerful Orthodox power in the world,» the Patriarch said during a dialogue with the participants of the VIII international festival of Orthodox media «Faith and word».

According to him, when they say that 150 million believers is the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and other countries is «do so, those people who try to live according to Orthodox law».

«And look at the development of modern civilization: after all, not fully, that is, conform our values and ideals that we impose peace. And, of course, someone had to attack the island of freedom. Why I call Christianity? Because we are free from global brainwashing and domination of others over us in thoughts… the global information impact on people with very specific, defined goals. Here let us here look for a reason far beyond Ukraine having second thoughts about weakening the Russian Orthodox Church and its division,» — said the Patriarch.

In addition, he continued, there are «less global causes» of what is happening: you need to «just squeeze the canonical Orthodoxy of the religious field of Ukraine, to weaken it to the limit and create a schismatic, and therefore a graceless jurisdiction».

«One can look at it from different points of view, politicians appreciate it from a political point of view. I purely spiritual: and what is deprivation of grace of the whole people? And instead of the grace of the Church, bearing the gifts of the Holy spirit, we just see the clowns — people who do not have any authority to celebrate the divine service, and some of them anathema loyal… So, of course, a tragedy for Ukraine, these sectarian divisions beyond the boundaries of the political field — it has, I would even say, mystical dimension», — concluded the Patriarch.

Because of the decision of Constantinople to begin providing non-canonical autocephaly churches in Ukraine, which the Russian Orthodox Church is called the schism, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on 15 October announced the severance of communication with the Patriarchate of Constantinople on the canonical territory of the ROC, including Ukraine and Belarus. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has called canonically void, and saw politics in the abolition of Constantinople by the act of 1686 on the transfer of the Kyiv Metropolitanate to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Hilarion said that Constantinople lost its right to be called the coordinating centre of Orthodoxy. In the Russian Orthodox Church hope that Constantinople will change the decision to give the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church, and before that he will be in schism.

The Eucharistic communion makes it impossible for all of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church to serve together with the hierarchs and clergy of the Church of Constantinople, and for the laity – participate in the ordinances performed in her temples.